One thing about already existing African DLC civs is that they covered all civilization types.
Berbers - Cavalry and Camel and Naval civ and arguably a CA civ as well with 2 CA UU
Ethiopians - Foot Archer and Siege civ
Malians - Infantry and Cavalry civ
Portuguese - Gunpowder and Naval civ
I’m excluding Portuguese obviously. So a new African civ with CA and gunpowder focus will add most variety.
Right now, these are the civilizations I want to see in an African DLC. This is far from a complete sketch, as I’ve never been great with inventing civ bonuses, but I’m eager to get it out there nonetheless.
The Shona (the people who built Great Zimbabwe)
Their UU would be the Assegai Thrower, a skirmisher with a bonus against cavalry and spearmen. The campaign could be based on the exploits of Changamire Dombo of the Rozvi Empire.
The Swahili
They would have two UU. One would be the Mtepe, which would replace both the Fishing Ship and Trade Cog and double as both. The terrestrial UU would be the Ivory Hunter, a gunpowder unit with superior range to the Hand Cannoneer (think of it as being like a sniper). Their Wonder would be based on Kilwa Kisiwani, and their campaign could be based on the Shirazi dynasty of Kilwa.
The Bakongo
Their UU would be the Poison Archer, who would shoot poisoned arrows. Their campaign would be based on that of Queen Nzinga of Ndongo and Matamba, and their wonder would be based on the a sort of sacred grove called the Chibila.
In addition, since southern Africans would not have access to cavalry, they would use a regional unit called the Runner as their scout. These would have superior LOS to other scouts and run faster than Native American Eagle Scouts, but have a weaker attack. The Bakongo Runners would also be able to run through forests.
Out of the timeframe.
I see what you mean, but I suppose the timeline could always be extended in this special case. Either that or we move these civs to AoE3: DE.
(I actually don’t think we need a whole campaign per civ to put them into the game, but that has been the trend with previous DLC.)
This is better. And a uu that can go through forests is a bad idea.
@Mahazona yes we can use it as UU, although for sure they will have a naval UU. In the case of a regional unit (such as an Eagle), we need a non-generic name, but one that works for multiple civs, since from the looks of it, each of these horseless civs likely had an elite of specialized runners: Mpombo in the Kongo and Marimbirimbi no Shona (I’m still reading about Benin, but I bet they had them too).
@Akoskaaa10 Good idea, but we need a new mechanic or some unused bonus. Maybe a skirmisher UU?
I’ll post some ideas I had and let me know what you guys think:
→ for UU of the Kabembu, I thought of this guy here: the Baguirmi Knight. He would be a little slower than a Paladin, but he would have the mechanics of Ghulam (His graphic would have this big fork to represent lol, but it wouldn’t be gray but colored like this one).
→ for UU of Swahili (or is it better Somalis?), I thought of a boat with the Keshik mechanics to represent piracy. He would be a naval battering ram with high movement speed. (I thought of multiple arrows, but we have 2 of these now)
→ for Kongo’s UU, I thought of a nerfed TK, but with Leitis’s ability (increasing speed rather than attack) to represent some religious zeal.
→ for the Shona, I think we’ll have to use Goromondo anyway. It is difficult to find details about them.
That’s it for now. Soon, I will bring images that I found of the UUs.
P.S.: I replied here so as not to divert the subject further of the other thread.
I agree with Kanembu and Shona.
Like Ngao Mbeba and Kongo Bowmans in Portuguese Civ Mod lll?
Nice. I also agree with you and @TyrannoNinja on some things.
But I had in mind that you guys commented (or proposed others) the mechanics of the units based on the summaries of each civ.
I’m still looking for the Swahili sea war, but I found this: Reddit - Dive into anything
Tl;dr: We can use the names baghlahs or ghanjas, which are much larger dhows.
Yes, as I put it up there: Yandi Kitaninu (it’s the best translation I found for “Shield Bearer”) for the heavy infantry and Kimbare, the name of Ndongo’s archers (many used the Cabanzo poison that killed in a few hours). Or we can use archers from the kingdom Tio/Anziku/Teke, Kongo’s northern neighbor:
A new type of ChuKoNu?
Nice. I didn’t know about those Malassays. I downloaded The Conquest of Abyssinia to read (it’s also free). It tells the conquest of Ethiopia by Ahmad ibn Ibrahim al-Ghazi. There must be something specific about the Somali (Adal) war there.
So based on info and drawings from LinusLinothorax and Alejandro Sanchez here, I made a drawing of him for aoe2. So even if Nubians aren’t added to the game, we would at least have a correct skin for Archer of the Eyes.
Soon, I will bring more UU images.
Did they really call themselves legionaries?
@Zero17893 Yeah, but let’s not copy him, it would be wrong. Let’s make new bonuses.
I read Legions of Benin on Wikipedia, seems like it has been deleted. It may have been false.
Give Kongolese Mambele Throwers as a Scout replacement. It would be weaker than a Gbeto, but also cheaper. Yandi Kitaninu could be a mix of Champions and Halberdiers from the Barracks. Kimbare should be an Archer that does poison damage.
Where? I am interested in it.
From what I could research, the Gbeto actually belonged to a group called Fon, or Dahomey (hence the Dahomey Amazon in AoE3DE)
I’ve also been told they don’t fit AoE2’s time period.
Yeah but the Dahomey Amazons used rifles, not throwing swords
Mameluks didn’t use throwing knives either, as far as I can tell, but Age of Empires is a treasure trove of weird decisions.
Perhaps devs were thinking of bringing something more exotic rather than more of a cavalry unit as would be expected from Mali. Or maybe they just tried to apply some ideas from Ensemble and since they didn’t imagine the growth of aoe2, they mixed it in the (possibly the only) African civs to come. Or it could be many other reasons, who knows.
@Akoskaaa10 Sorry. I stumbled across a pdf version without checking where. Now I’m also not sure if it’s legal or not.
Even representing them as camel riders isn’t exactly accurate, to be honest.
I love that drawing of the Nubian archer!
That drawing is wrong they should be armed with a longbow not a shot bow like that.
This is better
Glad you liked it. It looked kind of weird on the bow hand because I copied it by eye, but I’ll do better in the next UUs (I’ll use poses from a 3d model).
@Mahazona this video is about the Nubians of Meroe (Kush) from Roman times. The archer I drew is from Makuria in the Middle Ages. From what I’ve read, it looks like they continued the archery tradition, but with smaller bows. I thought about changing his name to avoid this confusion, but I don’t know any better.
You all probably already know. But I will leave here the Nubian Wonder for those who want to see:
The Faras Cathedral
The ones in the video are self bows from antiquity. During the medieval period, nubians used short recurve bows.
Does anyone have a source for Kanembu military campaigns?
